JP2968387B2 - Key assigner for electronic musical instruments - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a key assigner for an electronic musical instrument, and more particularly, to a technique for allocating a sound channel for realizing a natural performance in an electronic musical instrument.

In recent years, electronic musical instruments such as electronic organs and electronic pianos have been developed and put to practical use. In general, such an electronic musical instrument is provided with a plurality of sounding channels in order to simultaneously sound a plurality of sounds corresponding to a plurality of pressed keys. At the time of sound generation, the key assigner determines which sound generation channel is used to generate the sound corresponding to the pressed key.

On the other hand, electronic musical instruments are generally constructed so as to be able to simulate the timbres of various musical instruments. In such an electronic musical instrument, for example, by specifying a tone according to a key range, a plurality of tones such as a decay sound like a piano and a continuous sound like a violin can be simultaneously produced on the same keyboard. Has become.

However, in such an electronic musical instrument, the number of sounds that can be simultaneously generated is limited due to the limitation of the number of sounding channels. Therefore, within the range of the number of sounding channels of the electronic musical instrument, the sound to be silenced or the sounding channel of the sound to be sounded is determined by the key assigner to realize simultaneous sounding. At this time, simply assigning the sound of each key to a sounding channel may significantly impair the musicality, and thus an improvement is desired.

[0005]

2. Description of the Related Art The processing of a key assigner of a conventional electronic musical instrument will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of an assignment table used for key assignment processing and a transition state thereof.

In the figure, a "NO." Column indicates a sounding channel number. Here, it is assumed that there are ten sounding channels "1 to 10". The “RANK” column indicates the priority of each sounding channel. Here, the priority is information for determining the order of silencing when it is necessary to mute the sound channel. The maximum priority is “20”.

[0007] The "ON / OFF" column shows the use state of the sound channel. “ON” indicates that the sound channel is in use (key-on), and “OFF” indicates that the sound channel is not in use (key-off).

The key assignment process using such an assignment table will be described with reference to a flowchart shown in FIG.

When a sound is instructed by a processor (not shown), first, the priority of each sound channel in the assignment table is decreased by "1" (step S40). That is, the value of the priority column of all sounding channels is set to “−1”. Note that "0"
It shall not be reduced to a smaller value.

Next, it is checked whether or not a key-off sound channel exists (step S41). This is performed by examining the use state column of the assignment table. In the example of FIG. This indicates that sound channels 1 to 4 are not used.

If it is determined that there is a key-off sound channel, a sound channel having the lowest priority among the key-off sound channels is obtained (step S).
42). In the example of FIG. 1 and 2 will be required.

Next, the determined sound channel NO. The new priority value “2” is displayed in the priority columns 1 and 2.
"0" is written (step S44). This state is shown in FIG. At this time, the use state column is updated to “ON”. Next, a tone is generated according to the updated contents of the assignment table (step S45).

On the other hand, when it is determined in step S41 that there is no key-off sound channel, a sound channel having the lowest priority is determined in the assignment table, and the sound sounding in the sound channel is muted. (Step S
43). The example of FIG. 6C shows a state in which all sounding channels are in use. In this case, the sounding channel NO. 5 and 6 are obtained, and the sound being generated in these sound generation channels is muted.

Next, the determined sound channel No. in the assignment table. A new priority value “2” is displayed in the priority columns 5 and 6.
"0" is written (step S44). This state is shown in FIG. Next, a tone is generated according to the updated contents of the assignment table (step S45).

As described above, the conventional key assigner uniformly reduces the priority of each sounding channel when a new sounding instruction is issued. At this time, if an unused sounding channel exists, the lowest priority of the sounding channel is used. A sound is assigned to a channel having a degree and a sound is given by giving a maximum priority value.

On the other hand, if all sound channels are in use,
The sound channel with the lowest priority is muted, a new sound is assigned to the sound channel, and the highest priority value is given. Therefore, the sound of the sound channel to be muted is muted regardless of whether it is a damped sound or a continuous sound.

This means that if the sound to be silenced (priority is the minimum value) is a continuous sound, the sound will be silenced even if a key is being depressed, making the performance unnatural. There was a problem.

[0018]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and the performance is unnatural by controlling the timing at which the sound being generated is muted according to whether it is a continuous sound or a decay sound. It is an object of the present invention to provide a key assigner for an electronic musical instrument, which can prevent the occurrence of the key assignment.

[0019]

In order to achieve the above object, a key assigner for an electronic musical instrument according to the present invention provides an electronic musical instrument having a plurality of sounding channels capable of simultaneously generating different timbres. An assignment table storing priority information for controlling the order for each sounding channel, priority information updating means for subtracting each priority information in the assignment table when sounding is instructed, and sounding operation. If there are no channels, mute the sound channel with the lowest priority information among the channels that are not sounding, assign a new sound, and if all sound channels are sounding, Mutes the pronunciation channel with the lowest priority information among all pronunciation channels,
Allocating means for allocating a new sound, and control means for storing different values of priority information in the assignment table according to whether the sound to be generated in the sound channel allocated by the allocating means is a continuous sound or an attenuated sound. , Are provided.

[0020]

According to the present invention, for example, when a new sounding instruction is issued while all sounding channels are being used and use of one of the sounding channels is stopped, that is, when a state in which sound must be muted occurs, the assignment table is given priority. By referring to the degree information, the sounding channel with the lowest priority is muted, and a new sounding is assigned to the sounding channel.

At this time, it is determined whether the newly assigned sound is a continuous sound or an attenuated sound, and new priority information is written in the assignment table according to the result. Here, the priority value of the continuous sound is written into the assignment table with a large value, and the priority value of the attenuation sound is written with a small value.

As a result, the sounding channel assignment of the sustained sound is maintained longer than the attenuation sound. This means that the sustained sound is relatively difficult to be silenced, thereby preventing the performance from becoming unnatural.

Although the decay sound is muted relatively quickly, the decay sound is originally a decay sound, so that it is not necessary to produce it for a long time, and no unnaturalness in performance occurs.

[0024]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram schematically showing an overall configuration of an electronic musical instrument to which a key assigner according to the present invention is applied.

In the figure, reference numeral 10 denotes a keyboard, which is used to designate a sound to be generated. The keyboard 10 includes a plurality of keys (keys), key switches that open and close in response to key press / release operations of these keys, and a key scan circuit (not shown) that detects the open / closed state of these key switches. Etc. are included.

A signal indicating on / off of a key switch detected by a key scan circuit of the keyboard 10 is sent to a touch detection circuit 11.

The touch detection circuit 11 generates touch data indicating the strength (speed) of key touch from a signal indicating on / off of a key switch sent from a key scan circuit of the keyboard 10, and generates on / off data. It outputs off information and information (key number) for specifying an on or off key. The on / off information, the key number and the touch data are transmitted to the CPU 1 via the system bus 30.
Sent to 3.

Reference numeral 12 denotes a panel switch provided on an operation panel (not shown), which is used to control various operations of the electronic musical instrument. The various switches include a tone selection switch, a rhythm selection switch, a volume control switch, and the like.

The panel switch 12 is a panel scan circuit (not shown) for detecting the open / closed state of each switch.
Contains. The open / close state of each switch detected by the panel scan circuit is sent to the CPU 13.

Reference numeral 13 denotes a central processing unit (CPU) which controls each section of the electronic musical instrument in accordance with a control program stored in a read only memory (hereinafter, referred to as "ROM") 14. The function of the key assigner of the present invention is realized by the processing of the CPU 13.

The ROM 14 stores various control data used by the CPU 13 in addition to storing the above-described control program. The ROM 14 is accessed by the CPU 13 via the system bus 30.

Reference numeral 15 denotes a random access memory (hereinafter, referred to as a random access memory).
"RAM"), a work area of the CPU 13,
Various registers, counters, flags, and the like for controlling the electronic musical instrument are defined. This RAM 15 has a CPU
13 is accessed via the system bus 30. The assignment table used in this embodiment is also stored in the RAM1.
5 is provided.

The tone generator 16 reads out tone waveform data and envelope data from a tone waveform memory (not shown) in accordance with predetermined information supplied from the CPU 13, adds an envelope to the read tone waveform data, and outputs it as a tone signal. Is what you do. The tone signal output from the tone generator 16 is supplied to an amplifier 17.

The amplifier 17 amplifies the tone signal supplied from the tone generator 16 with a predetermined gain and supplies the amplified signal to the speaker 18. The speaker 18 is a known one that converts an electric signal into an acoustic signal.

A MIDI interface circuit 19 controls transmission and reception of MIDI signals between the electronic musical instrument and an external device.

The touch detection circuit 11 and the CPU 1
3, the ROM 14, the RAM 15, and the tone generator 16 are interconnected by a system bus 30.

Next, the operation of the embodiment of the present invention in the above configuration will be described with reference to the drawings.

When the power is turned on to the electronic musical instrument, the main routine shown in FIG. 2 is started, and the processing is started. Then, first, an initialization process is performed (step S10).

This initialization processing sets the internal state of the tone generator circuit 16 to the initial state to prevent generation of unnecessary sounds when the power is turned on, clears the work area of the RAM 15, registers, This is a process of setting a counter, a flag, and the like to an initial state. Also, the priority columns of the assignment table are all set to the minimum priority (for example, “00”). In addition, the use state columns are all set to “OFF”.

Next, switch scan processing is performed (step S11). In this switch scan process,
RAM 15 for storing information corresponding to each panel switch
The upper area NEW buffer, OLD buffer and E
Three types of buffers, VENT buffers (all not shown) are used.

The NEW buffer is a buffer for storing data newly input from the panel switch this time, and the OLD buffer is a buffer for storing data input from the panel switch last time. Also, the EVENT buffer is
This buffer stores the presence / absence of a switch event and the type of event, and is set as shown in Table 1 below for each switch.

In the switch scan processing, first, data is input from the panel scan circuit of the panel switch 12 and stored in the NEW buffer. Next, the contents of the NEW buffer and the contents of the OLD buffer are compared. Here, when it is determined that they are equal, it means that the data read last time and the data read this time are equal, so it is determined that the switch has not changed, and E
"0" is set in the VENT buffer.

On the other hand, if it is determined that the contents of the NEW buffer and the contents of the OLD buffer are not equal, "0" is set.
It is checked whether or not the change is from "1" to "1", that is, whether the contents of the OLD buffer are "0" and the contents of the NEW buffer are "1".

Here, when it is determined that the change is from "0" to "1", it is recognized that an ON event has occurred, and "1" is set in the EVENT buffer. on the other hand,
If it is determined that the change is not from “0” to “1”,
Recognizes that an off event has occurred, and sets "2" in the EVENT buffer

In this way, information indicating the presence / absence of an event of each switch and, if an event has occurred, whether the event is an ON event or an OFF event are set in the EVENT buffer.

Next, panel processing is performed (step S12). This panel process performs a process corresponding to a switch having an event in the switch scan process. For example, a tone color change process, a rhythm change process, a volume control process, and the like are performed according to operations of a tone color selection switch, a rhythm selection switch, a volume control switch, and the like.

Next, a keyboard scanning process is performed (step S13). In this keyboard scanning process, for example, there are areas corresponding to the respective keys of key numbers 01 to 88.
NEWKEY buffer, OLD provided in RAM 15
Three types of buffers, a KEY buffer and an EVENTKEY buffer, are used.

The NEWKEY buffer is a buffer for storing data newly input from the keyboard 10 this time.
The EY buffer is a buffer for storing data previously input from the keyboard 10. Each of these buffers has a 1-byte area corresponding to each key, and data indicating on / off of the key (key off at “0”, key on at “1”) remains in the MSB (bit 7). 7 bits (bit 6
To 0) are respectively stored.

The EVENTKEY buffer is a buffer for storing the presence / absence of a key event and the type of the event, and is set as shown in Table 1 above for each key.

In the keyboard scanning process, first, a process of inputting keyboard data, that is, a process of inputting a key number, information indicating on / off thereof, and touch data from the touch detection circuit 11 is performed. Then, the input data is N
Stored in the EWKYE buffer.

Next, the contents of the NEWKEY buffer and O
The contents of the LDKEY buffer are compared, and when they are determined to be equal, "0" is set in the EVENTKEY buffer. That is, the fact that the data read last time and the data read this time are equal means that there is no change in the switch. Therefore, "0" indicating no change is set in the EVENTKEY buffer. .

On the other hand, the contents of the NEWKEY buffer and the OL
If it is determined that the contents of the DKEY buffer are not equal to each other, it is determined whether or not the change is from “0” to “1”, that is, the contents of the OLDKEY buffer are “0”, and NEWK is determined.
It is checked whether or not the content of the EY buffer is "1".

When it is determined that the change is from "0" to "1", it is recognized that an ON event has occurred, and "1" is set in the EVENTKEY buffer.
On the other hand, if it is determined that there is no change from “0” to “1”, it is recognized that an off event has occurred, and EVENTK
"2" is set in the EY buffer.

As described above, the information indicating the presence / absence of an event of each key switch and, if there is an event, whether the event is an ON event or an OFF event, are transmitted to the EVENTK.
Set in the EY buffer.

Next, it is checked whether or not the key is on (step S14). That is, by checking the EVENTKEY buffer created by the keyboard scanning process, it is checked whether or not a key-on event has occurred.

Here, if it is determined that a key-on event has occurred, it is checked whether the flag LOCAL is "1" (step S15).

Here, the flag LOCAL is set in the RAM 15
Is a flag that indicates whether the electronic musical instrument should be sounded by depressing the keyboard 10 of the electronic musical instrument, or whether the sound should not be emitted even if the key is depressed. The flag LOCAL is set / reset by a predetermined operation of the panel switch 12.

At step S15, the flag LOCAL
Is determined to be "1", it recognizes that the keyboard 10 of the electronic musical instrument should perform a sounding operation, and performs sounding processing (step S16). A key assignment process is performed as a part of the sound generation process. The details of this key assignment process will be described later.

Next, a MIDI output process is performed (step S17). That is, the information corresponding to the key-on (the performance information used in the above sound generation processing) is defined as MIDI information,
The data is sent to an external device via the DI interface circuit 19. As a result, sound or recording is performed by the external device.

On the other hand, in step S15, the flag LO
If it is determined that CAL is "0", it is recognized that the keyboard 10 does not sound, and the sound generation processing (step S1)
6), skip the MIDI output process (step S1).
Perform only 7). In other words, the electronic musical instrument does not generate sound, and the external device performs sound generation or recording.

If it is determined in step S14 that the key is not turned on, the sound generation process (step S1) is performed.
6) and the MIDI output process (step S17) are skipped.

Next, it is checked whether or not the key is turned off (step S18). That is, by checking the EVENTKEY buffer created by the keyboard scanning process, it is checked whether or not a key-off event has occurred.

If it is determined that a key-off event has occurred, it is checked whether or not the flag LOCAL is "1" (step S19).

When it is determined that the flag LOCAL is "1", it is recognized that the electronic musical instrument should be operated with the keyboard 10, and a sound mute process is performed (step S2).
0). This silencing process is a process of canceling the assignment of the sounding channel being sounded and stopping sounding. In this mute processing, the use state column of the assignment table is set to “OFF”.

Next, a MIDI output process is performed (step S21). That is, the information corresponding to the key-off (the information used in the mute processing) is defined as MIDI information,
The data is sent to an external device via the interface circuit 19.
As a result, silencing or recording is performed by the external device.

On the other hand, in step S19, the flag LO
When it is determined that CAL is “0”, it is recognized that the keyboard 10 does not mute, and the mute processing (step S2)
0) is skipped and the MIDI output process (step S2
Perform only 1). That is, the electronic musical instrument is not muted, and the external device performs muting or recording.

Thereafter, the flow returns to step S11, and the same processing is repeated thereafter. As a result, sounding in response to key depression or mute in response to key release is performed at the tone, volume, tempo, and the like set on the operation panel.

If it is determined in step S18 that the key is not turned off, the above-described mute processing (step S2) is performed.
0) and the MIDI output process (step S21) are skipped, the process returns to step S11, and the same process as described above is repeated.

Next, the key assignment process of the sound generation process will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of an assignment table used for key assignment processing and a transition state thereof.

In FIG. 4, the "NO." Column indicates a sounding channel number. Here, it is assumed that there are ten sounding channels "1 to 10". The “RANK” column is
Indicates the priority of each sounding channel. Here, it is information for determining the order of silencing when it is necessary to mute the sound channel. The highest priority is “20” for the decay sound and “23” for the continuous sound. Here, 1
In this example, a two-channel sound is generated by a sound generation command.

The "ON / OFF" column indicates the state of use of the sound channel. “ON” indicates that the sound channel is in use (key-on), and “OFF” indicates that the sound channel is not in use (key-off).

The key assignment process using such an assignment table will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

In the tone generation processing routine, first, the priority of each tone generation channel in the assignment table is lowered by "1" (step S30). That is, the value of the priority column of all sounding channels is set to “−1”. Note that the value is not set to be smaller than “0”.

Next, it is checked whether or not a key-off sound channel exists (step S31). This is performed by examining the use state column of the assignment table. In the example of FIG. This indicates that the sound channels 1, 2, 4, and 6 are not used.

If it is determined that there is a key-off sound channel, a sound channel having the lowest priority among the key-off sound channels is determined (step S).
32). In the example of FIG. 4A, the sounding channel N
O. 2 and NO. 4 will be required.

On the other hand, if it is determined in step S31 that there is no key-off sound channel, a sound channel having the lowest priority is determined in the assignment table, and the sound generated by the sound channel is muted (step S31). Step S33).

The example of FIG. 4C shows that all sound channels are in use. In this case, the sound channel NO. 3 and NO. 8 is obtained, and the sound being generated in these sounding channels is muted.

Next, it is checked whether or not the sound to be newly generated is a continuous sound (step S34). This is done by examining the tone to be sounded with the key turned on.

When it is determined that the sound is a continuous sound, a new priority value "23" for the continuous sound is written in the corresponding sounding channel position (see No. 3 in FIG. 4D) in the assigner table. (Step S35). On the other hand, if it is determined that the sound is not a sustained sound, that is, it is an attenuated sound, a new priority value “20” for the attenuated sound is stored in the corresponding sounding channel position (see No. 8 in FIG. 4D) in the assigner table. Is written (step S36).

Next, a tone is generated according to the contents of the updated assignment table (step S37).

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the process of the key assigner. When there is an unused sounding channel, FIG.
(A) to FIG. 4 (B), and FIG. 4 (B) to FIG.
(C). At this time, the use status column is "O
N ”. When there is no unused sounding channel, a transition is made from FIG. 4 (C) to FIG. 4 (D).

As described above, according to this embodiment, for example, a new tone generation instruction is issued while all tone generation channels are in use, and a situation arises in which use of any tone generation channel must be stopped, that is, sound must be muted. In this case, referring to the priority information in the assignment table, the sounding channel with the lowest priority is muted, and a new sound is assigned to the sounding channel.

At this time, it is determined whether the newly assigned sound is an attenuated sound or a sustained sound, and new priority information is written in the assignment table according to the result. For example, the priority value of the continuous sound is “23”, and the priority value of the decay sound is “2”.
Write "0" in each assignment table.

As a result, the sounding channel assignment of the sustained sound is maintained longer than the decay sound. This means that the sustained sound is relatively difficult to be silenced, thereby preventing the performance from becoming unnatural.

In the above-described embodiment, the priority values are set differently for the decay sound and the sustained sound, and the timing of silencing is controlled. However, the priority values are set based on other attributes of the sound. You may comprise so that it may be set differently. With such a configuration, it is possible to mute the sound at a timing that is optimal for the attribute of the sound to be produced, and it is possible to perform a performance without unnaturalness.

[0087]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, there is provided a key assigner for an electronic musical instrument which can prevent the performance from becoming unnatural by controlling the timing of silencing according to the attribute of the sound being generated. can do.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram schematically showing an overall configuration of an electronic musical instrument to which a key assigner of the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart (main routine) for explaining the operation of the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart for explaining a tone generation process in FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram for explaining an operation of sound generation processing in FIG. 2;

FIG. 5 is a flowchart for explaining a conventional key assignment process.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram for explaining an operation of a conventional key assignment process.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 10 keyboard 11 touch detection circuit 12 panel switch 13 CPU 14 ROM 15 RAM 16 sound source circuit 17 amplifier 18 speaker 19 MIDI interface circuit

────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-63-293595 (JP, A) JP-A-2-216196 (JP, A) JP-A-5-265457 (JP, A) JP-A-3- 150597 (JP, A) JP-A-4-362997 (JP, A) JP-A-2-83596 (JP, A) JP-A-2-217900 (JP, A) JP-A-3-171197 (JP, A) JP-A-62-90697 (JP, A) Japanese Patent Publication No. 1-28397 (JP, B2) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁶ , DB name) G10H 1/18 101

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] An electronic musical instrument having a plurality of sounding channels capable of simultaneously producing different timbres, comprising: an assignment table storing priority information for controlling the order of sounding channels to be silenced for each sounding channel; Priority information updating means for subtracting each piece of priority information in the assignment table when instructed; and, when there is a channel not performing sounding operation, the lowest priority among channels not performing sounding operation. Mute the sounding channel with the information and assign a new sound, and if all sounding channels are sounding, mute the sounding channel with the lowest priority information among all sounding channels. Allocating means for allocating a new sound, and prioritizing information having different values depending on whether the sound to be generated in the sound channel allocated by the allocating means is a continuous sound or an attenuated sound. Key assigner of an electronic musical instrument characterized by comprising control means allowed to store the assignment table, a.